Advisory Council

Experts at the Intersections of Data Science, Geospatial Technologies, and Global Health 

Dr. Karan Nagpal, IDinsight

Karan Nagpal is an Associate Director and Economist at IDinsight, based in New Delhi. Karan leads several government partnerships in India, as well as experimental work to make data collection cheaper, faster, and more respectful for respondents. His work spans several sectors, including governance, state capacity, COVID data systems, financial inclusion, sanitation, and primary healthcare. Karan holds a DPhil (PhD) and an MPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford.
Linkedin >

Monica Nthiga, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team

Monica serves as Regional Director- Eastern and Southern Africa with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. Monica has worked closely with civil society organizations, government agencies, Startups, Non-Governmental Organisation in East, West, and Southern Africa in advancing the use of open-source technologies and open data in humanitarian response and development.
Linkedin >

Omran Najjar, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team

Omran joined HOT in May 2021, within the hot_tech team as AI and Advanced Data Engineer, playing a part in enabling and amplifying work of HOT around AI/ML. Omran brings with himself 13 years of experience in software engineering, information systems, advanced database management and AI/ML. Previously, Omran worked with Creative Associates International for 4 years between M&E and IT teams, and spent 2 years with Plan International as Senior Developer/Team Lead. Omran holds a MSc in EEE, Computer Science (2020, Turkey) with research thesis and experimental application on Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) algorithms and MSc in Data Analytics and Information Systems (2022, Germany)
Linkedin >

Tasauf A Baki Billah (Ribin), iMMAP & OSM Bangladesh

Tasauf aka Ribin has been leading the OpenStreetMap community in Bangladesh, remotely supporting regional & global initiatives like HOTOSM, MissingMaps, CrisisMappers, UNMappers through mapping, data validation, and advocacy. For more than 7 years he has been extensively engaged with developing, nurturing & advocating community data-driven resilience platforms focusing on open data & mapping technologies. He is the Executive Director for Bangladesh Open Innovation Lab (BOIL) and Coordination Lead for team BHOOT (Bangladesh Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Operations Team) which is one of the core support teams for the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) ‘s global disaster activation for the past 5 years. Coming from a Computer Science background, over the last 10 years he had been working, consulting, and volunteering with global organizations like MSF (Doctors Without Borders), Asia Foundation, American Red Cross, World Bank, Ycare, YMCA, Save the Children, WaterAid, UNICEF, Deltares NL, One Concern US, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) and iMMAP. Most recently he has been working as a Senior Analyst with iMMAP supporting their COVID-19 Situation Analysis project in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
Linkedin >

Dr. Anna Winters, Akros

Dr. Anna Winters trained as a spatial epidemiologist during her masters and PhD programs as well as at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Anna has worked globally focusing her efforts on vector-borne disease including dengue and malaria. She co-founded Akros, which provides technical support for disease surveillance and response systems to Ministries of Health across the Global South. Anna’s interest is to apply the power of spatial intelligence to optimize health interventions bringing impact and equitable health service delivery to the very last mile.
Linkedin >

Doug Johnson, Consultant

Doug Johnson is an independent social impact consultant based in New Zealand who specializes in estimating the impact of development interventions. Previously, Doug was a Director at IDinsight where he led a portfolio of projects focused on education and innovative methods for data collection. Doug has held positions at USAID, the World Bank, Abt Associates, and Accenture and holds a BA in Political Science from Rice University and an MPA in International Development (MPA/ID) from Harvard Kennedy School.

Rica Duchateau, Clinton Health Access Initiative

Based in Vientiane, Laos, since 2020, Rica Duchateau is a Senior Associate in Geospatial Health Information on the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) Laos Country Team. In this role, she leads the implementation of a common geo-registry at the Lao Ministry of Health, alongside providing support to health programs in data visualization and spatial analysis. Rica holds an MSc in Geographical Information Science from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and a BSc in Geography from KU Leuven in Belgium and is passionate about making geospatial data and technologies more accessible to communities. Having been actively involved in the design and development of a range of enterprise GIS solutions and UK government digital services during previous consultancy roles, Rica brings geospatial data management, interaction design, and hands-on software development experience to the Lao public health space.
Linkedin >

Derek Pollard, Akros

Derek Pollard is a Senior Technical Advisor at Akros and is currently based in Zambia supporting health system strengthening projects across Africa. He is a qualified monitoring and evaluation specialist with over 10 years of experience designing surveillance systems and leading mobile technology design teams to expand data access and consumption. Much of his current work focuses on improving end to end government managed health campaign interventions through the use of digitized geospatial data to enhance microplanning, health service delivery, analysis and use for more informed decision making.
Linkedin >

Md. Tawshif Islam, Centre for Research Development

Being an Urban Planner and Sr. Research & Evaluation Officer, Md. Tawshif Islam holds a competitive experience in the field of Urban & Regional Planning, Development Studies, and GIS. Mr. Tawshif obtains a degree of BURP (Bachelor of Urban and Regional Planning) and MURP (Masters in Urban and Regional Planning) along with a distinct university merit scholarship, both completed from the Jahangirnagar University of Bangladesh. Apart from his academic achievements, he has attended several international conferences including publications in their respective proceedings in the sector of transportation and seismic evaluation. His previous involvement holds an explicit experience of working with the Tohoku University of Japan in the SATREPS-TSUIB project, where he developed an integrated network algorithm to evaluate vulnerable network nodes. Furthermore, he has also worked with UDD (Urban Development Directorate) of Bangladesh in the project of Mirsharai Upazila Development Plan to initiate a growth pole functional hierarchy along with spatial analysis for the socio-cultural aspects as well. Currently, he is engaged with partners from the humanitarian and development sector covering the local and international extent. Apart from his professional contribution, he is also involved with several voluntary activities in the field of YouthMappers’ and OSM community along with the experience of being the Ambassador for SuperMap Software Co. ltd at Jahangirnagar University.
Linkedin >

Abby Ward, Clinton Health Access Initiative

Abby leads geospatial data strategy at CHAI and the global analytics team for malaria and NTDs. She has been with CHAI for 11 years. Prior to her career in global health, Abby worked in communications and led a conservation philanthropy program for an outdoor retailer. She holds a BA in Environmental Studies from Middlebury College and an MHS in Environmental Health from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
Linkedin >

Joel Alex Okello, BRAC

Joel’s background includes over 10 years implementing technology solutions in government, corporate and the NGO sectors. He is currently a Digital Research Specialist at the Independent Evaluation and Research Cell (IERC), the research wing of BRAC International. Joel holds a MSc in ICT Management, Policy and Architectural Design from Uganda Martyr’s University.
Linkedin >

Marc Levy, GRID3

Marc Levy is Director of GRID3 (Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development) and Deputy Director of CIESIN (the Center for International Earth Science Information Network), a unit of the Climate School at Columbia University in New York. He explores new ways to harness interdisciplinary spatial data to better manage complex risk and achieve sustainable development. He has served on many expert bodies convened by the IPCC, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, World Economic Forum, and others. GRID3 works with African governments to deploy data science innovations for mapping populations, settlements, subnational boundaries, and development infrastructure at very high resolution so that previously unattainable development goals can be achieved.
Linkedin >

Dr. Mohammed Eunus Ali, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology

Dr. Mohammed Eunus Ali is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka since May 2014. He is the group leader of Data Science and Engineering Research Lab (DataLab) in the department of Computer Science and Engineering at BUET. He received his PhD degree in Computer Science and Software Engineering from the University of Melbourne in 2010. He also worked as a Research Fellow and Visiting Research Scholars in the University of Melbourne, Monash University, Swinburne University of Technology, and RMIT University. Dr. Eunus is the recipient of the prestigious UGC Award in the year 2012 for his outstanding research contribution. Dr. Eunus’s research falls in the intersection of data management and machine learning. His research areas cover a wide range of topics in database systems and information management that include spatial databases, practical machine learning, and data analytics. Dr. Eunus’s research papers have been published in top ranking journals and conferences such as the VLDB Journal, TKDE, DMKD, Information Systems, WWWJ, DKE, ICDE, CIKM, EDBT, PVLDB, and UbiComp. He served as Program Committee members of many prestigious conferences that include SIGMOD, VLDB, ICDE, AAAI, and SIGSPATIAL. Dr. Eunus is also involved in different projects that investigate the role of ICT for the development of developing countries like Bangladesh. The details of different research and development projects can be found in DataLab page. Dr. Eunus also led multiple projects of national interests that include iDMT for Madrasah Board, iBook for Technical Board, National ID project, etc. Dr Eunus plays a key role in establishing the Samsung Innovation Lab at CSE, BUET. Dr. Eunus was the founding Chair of BUET ACM Chapter.
Linkedin >